“They refused to attack us,” Styke said. “They disobeyed that unhinged piece of shit. They’re not our enemies.” He glanced at the remnants of Dorezen’s house and wondered if the mayor blamed him for this whole sequence of events. It had started and ended with Prost, but Styke was the connecting piece between them. He wished for the hundredth time that he had kept his temper—and for the hundredth time he knew he couldn’t have stood aside while Prost beat Tel-islo to death.
Styke continued, “You should take everyone from here and go. As soon as Sirod finds out what’s happened here, he’s going to send a whole brigade to stamp out any witnesses.”
“Holdenshire has offered us shelter,” Dorezen said.
Holdenshire was the next town over. They were close enough that they would have seen the flames last night. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Styke said.
“What can we do?” Dorezen scoffed, his eyes red. “Where can we go? Even if we go a hundred miles, it won’t make a difference. Sirod will find us eventually.”
“As soon as you’ve buried the dead, you need to collect what valuables you can and head northwest. If you get out of Sirod’s territory, he’s less likely to chase you down. Tell everyone you meet what happened here. Make sure that stamping out the survivors will gain him nothing.”
“Northwest?”
“Governor Lindet ejected the Kez garrison from Redstone. I imagine she’ll be sympathetic. Tell her that I sent you.”
Dorezen still seemed uncertain, but Styke had said his peace. He turned to go, then offered one more thought. “These cuirassiers… don’t let anyone attack them. They were innocent of this. Have them help bury the dead, and send them on their way.” With that, he left the mayor and headed back to Blye, only to find the whole group of cuirassiers, Cardin included, were going off on separate tangents in Kez.
Blye leaned over to Styke. “They’re renouncing their military oaths to Kez.”
“I can hear that,” Styke said, raising his eyebrows. He hadn’t asked that, nor had he expected it. Most of these men would probably change their names and rejoin the Kez armies in some far away places, hoping this blew over. The sight of the town must have affected them deeper than he expected. “I think you should take the men to Redstone,” Styke suggested.
“Huh? You’re not coming with us?”
“No, I’m not going with you. You’ll do well in Redstone, and you can tell the governor there I sent you.”
“Where are you going?”
Styke walked over to Deshnar and untied him from the post. He tapped the side of a canvas bag hanging from his saddle horn. It dripped ominously. “I’m going to take Sirod what’s left of his brother. Then I’m going to cut out his spine and show it to him.”
Styke left Fernhollow on his own, and it took him two days to reach Landfall. The capital city sat upon an enormous plateau on the coast, overlooking miles of floodplains and the Pelos Ocean. Styke entered the suburbs from the south, the plateau rising nearly two hundred feet above him. It was almost two miles across and topped by houses, tenements, government buildings, and more.
Unlike the cities of the Nine, Landfall was a more recent creation. A few hundred years ago it held little more than a town, a fort, and a lighthouse. Only in the last eighty years or so had the population exploded and the city overflowed so that suburbs spilled onto the floodplains.
Styke had last been in Landfall over the winter, and even in the suburbs he could feel that a change had come over the city. He listened as he rode, picking up on local rumors—that the port might be closed soon, that Governor Sirod had mentioned martial law. Everyone walked with their eyes down and their shoulders hunched, whispering to each other in the alleys while newsie boys claimed calamity to sell their stacks of papers.
He avoided the main avenues where the Kez grenadiers patrolled the streets, and instead circled through the suburbs at the base of the plateau and caught a keelboat down the Gorge River. He disembarked in Greenfire Depths—the old quarry-turned-slum—and led Deshnar on foot up the switchbacks that took him straight into the center of the city.
Not far from the Depths was a bar that hung precariously over the gorge. It was marked with a yellow sign proclaiming it to be Canyonview Spirits and Livery. Most people would pass Canyonview and assume from its daring location and ramshackle appearance that it had seen better days, that it had maybe even once been a place of fashion for the daring drinker. Styke was privy to the knowledge that it had been built exactly like this only a few years ago. There had never been better days, and there never would be. The owner liked the look, and she liked the location.
He left Deshnar with one of the kids that counted as a groom and headed inside, a tiny part of his stomach lurching as he stepped off firm ground and onto the floor suspended almost entirely over the edge of the gorge. It creaked angrily under his weight.
Canyonview’s owner was a tiny, yellow-toothed woman of indeterminately advanced years with a shock of white hair and a mean streak as deep as the gorge. There were rumors that anyone who couldn’t pay their tab were tossed out a hatch beneath the bar, screaming their way into the gorge below. Before Canyonview, she had been a lancer—and a damned good one.
“Afternoon, Benjamin,” she said as he took his seat.
“How are you, Sunintiel?” he asked, sliding a coin across the bar and stretching his arms. He glanced around the half-full place, seeing more than a few eyes squinting in his direction.
Sunin cocked her head to one side and poured him a brown liquid out of a green bottle. “I thought you were dead.”
“I’m not sure why.” He lifted the glass she’d poured him and looked through the murky liquid. “What the pit is this?”
She beamed at him. “Made it myself.”
“It smells awful.” Styke took a sip and nearly spit it all over Sunin’s smiling face. “It tastes awful.” Someone had once tricked him into taking a shot of rancid whale oil. It tasted like that, only worse.
Her grin broadened. “I saved you a bottle.”
“I don’t want a bottle. I want a beer, and news.”
Sunin thumped a bottle onto the bar between them, pushing it below his nose. “You’re supposed to be dead,” she repeated.
“You mentioned that. Why?” Sunin nodded at the bottle. Reluctantly, Styke slid a few coins across the bar. She scowled at the coins, nudging them around with one bent finger as if counting them.
“I’m not paying you any more for that shit,” he told her.
Sunin scooped up the coins. “You’re supposed to be dead because Governor Sirod came through Landfall last night with the news that a renegade tribe of Palo slaughtered the Fernhollow garrison and burned the town to the ground.” She leaned forward, squinting at his face. “So either he’s telling a fib, or you’re a survivor. Or you got transferred recently, in which case I’m sorry to give you the news that Fernhollow is gone.” She put her elbow on the bar in a clear so give me your news gesture.
Styke finished off the shot of brown liquid, doing his best not to hurl all over Sunin’s clean bar, and let her stew in her curiosity. “What’s the fallout of this news?” he asked.
“Hmph,” Sunin said. “It’s gotten partially buried among all the other bad news. You hear that Redstone is in open revolt?”
“I heard that Lindet ejected the Kez garrison.”
“Well, that’s the real news today. She’s gone two steps further and claimed independence from the Kez crown. Stirring up a real hornet’s nest around here.”
“So nobody even cares about Fernhollow?” Styke asked, feeling his heart fall a little. It might have been a quiet, backwater town, but it had been his for a while.
“Oh, people care,” Sunin said. “Last night I had a rough crew of colonial skirmishers in here drinking till sunup. Said they were gonna go lynch some Palo, then volunteer for service on the frontier.”
Styke grunted. The thought made him sick. Colonials should know better. A “renegade tribe of
Palo” was a weak story. Any Palo this far south were what a lot of Fatrastans liked to refer to as “domesticated.” They’d adopted city life, keeping their heads down and trying to make a living like anyone else. The violent tribes were way too far north to bother with a little place like Fernhollow.
“So were you there?” Sunin asked. “What really happened?”
Styke reached inside his jacket and produced a scrap of cloth that he’d taken off the body of a cuirassier back in Fernhollow. He laid it out on the bar.
“What’s that?” Sunin’s smile faltered slightly.
Styke ignored the question. “You know who Nons je Prost was?”
“Yeah.” Sunin drew the word out hesitantly. “Sirod’s bastard brother.”
“On Sirod’s orders, Prost’s company of cuirassiers burned down Fernhollow and slaughtered a couple hundred people—men, women, children. They tried to burn down the barracks, but the lancers managed to fight their way out and save what was left of the town.”
Sunin’s smile slid off her face completely. “Kresimir,” she breathed. “Why?”
“An insult.”
“An insult?” she echoed.
“Prost beat on the local innkeep for asking him to pay his tab. I broke Prost’s arms. Things… escalated from there.”
“That’s quite the escalation.” Sunin fell silent, clearing contemplating the consequences of what Styke had just told her. “So the governor doesn’t know that his brother’s attack wasn’t successful?”
“Nor that his brother and his whole company are corpses in the ashes of Fernhollow,” Styke confirmed. He decided to leave Cardin out of the story. Cardin was a deserter now, and he deserved a head start.
“You’re a wanted man,” Sunin said, eying the current patrons of the bar.
“I will be,” Styke said, “as soon as the governor hears what actually happened. You going to turn me in?”
“Pit, no. I want to keep my skin. But I can’t speak for any of these fools.” She gestured subtly at the patrons of her bar. “You should run, Ben. Get out of here before word spreads. I can lend you a little money and send you with some feed for Deshnar, but you’ve got to get out—”
Styke cut her off. “Prost’s men killed Rezi.”Sunin’s lips continued to move, but no sound came out. She swallowed hard and took a half step back. “What you gonna do?” she asked in a whisper.
Styke took out Rezi’s knife. He used it to pop the cork on the bottle of foul liquid Sunin had made him buy, then upended the bottle over his mouth. He downed about half of it in a single go, then slid the bottle over to Sunin while the warmth of the alcohol deadened the knot in the pit of his stomach.
“I’m going to make a delivery. Also, I need a favor.” He tapped the scrap of cloth he’d laid out on the bar. “This is Prost’s company colors. I want you to repeat that story I just told you. Get it moving. By tonight, I want everyone in Landfall to know what the governor did. Use these colors as proof.” Sirod seemed unconcerned with the revolution in Redstone. Angry citizens on his doorstep, however, would no doubt get his attention.
“Do you want him to come after you?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
Styke left Landfall within the hour, stopping only to purchase a small, waterproof sea chest. He filled it with the contents of the stinking, fly-blown sack that had been tied to his saddle horn for two days. He tied up the chest and rode on, hoping to stay ahead of the news that Fernhollow—and he—had survived Prost’s assault.
The tension within Landfall extended through the remaining suburbs and into the towns along the banks of the Hadshaw as he headed upriver. It seemed that everyone he met asked for news with a guilty duck of the head, hoping to find out something valuable that might let them ride out this new revolution growing in Redstone.
Late in the evening, Styke spotted a large gathering in the center of one such small town. He paused, curious as to what could get the attention of sixty or seventy people, and cautiously directed Deshnar off the highway and toward the town center.
It didn’t take long to see what was happening. The crowd seemed subdued, watching as a handful of agitated men and women raised some kind of ruckus next to a big oak tree. A rope hung from the tree, suspending a noose around the neck of a young Palo man who stood on a crate just high enough that he wasn’t yet hanging.
Styke rode up beside a little girl who watched the proceedings from a store stoop. “What did he do?” he asked.
“Dunno,” the girl said, not taking her eyes off the scene. “Da says he didn’t do nuthin’, but the city elders claim he burnt down Fernhollow. Says he’s been actin’ all suspicious-like.”
“No one’s speaking up for him?”
“Nah. He’s just an orphan boy. Been workin’ the cotton fields for the last few years, but he likes to fight, so Da says it might be best just to let ’im hang.”
Styke felt his lip curl. Whatever was being said at the front of the crowd was finished, and a barrister kicked the crate from beneath the Palo’s feet. The Palo dropped a few inches, immediately beginning to strangle.
Styke clicked his tongue, leading Deshnar into the middle of the street before letting out a “Yah!” and digging his knees into Deshnar’s sides. The horse leapt beneath him and galloped full speed into the crowd of townsfolk. The crowd scattered before the sound of his charge. He reached the oak tree, circling it twice, driving back the few angry mob leaders before standing up in the stirrups and severing the rope with Rezi’s knife.
Styke dug his knees in again, urging Deshnar into a gallop around the oak again and again, in increasingly wide circles, nearly running down anyone who tried to approach the recovering Palo.
When the crowd finally seemed to get the message, he reined in beside the Palo and looked down. “What’s your name?”
The young man couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen—a boy, really. He was of medium height and had the kind of lean, muscular hardness brought on by a life of physical labor. He had sharp cheekbones, giving his face a perpetually sinister look, and his freckles were so emphasized by a life in the sun that his whole face was ashen with them. He wore a cotton suit, the jacket torn, and his face was bloody. He rubbed his neck and looked up at Styke.
“Henrich,” he coughed. “Henrich Jackal.”
“What kind of a Palo name is Henrich?”
“It’s the one I chose.”
“You should go, Jackal,” Styke said.
“He’s ours to hang as we see fit,” someone shouted from the crowd.
Styke turned to find a red-faced woman dressed like a barrister—the one who’d kicked Jackal’s crate from beneath him. Styke sniffed. “What he do, sleep with your daughter?”
The woman gave a strangled cry and leapt forward. In the time it took her to reach Styke, he had unlimbered his lance and lowered it. She skidded to a stop mere inches from its tip.
“Where’s the town constable?” Styke demanded, sweeping his gaze around the crowd. There was no answer, and he asked twice more before someone finally responded.
“He went into Landfall a couple of hours ago.”
Styke snorted. He’d seen that kind of thing plenty of times; a sheriff or constable “stepping out” just ahead of a bit of mob justice so they don’t have to get their hands dirty or say no to a mob.
“And the garrison?” he asked.
“They don’t want to get involved. This is a local matter,” someone else shouted.
Typical. “So did he actually do anything worth hanging?” Styke asked.
There was a very long silence, and no one wanted to meet his eyes. Styke thought of what Sunin had told him—about the drunk colonials looking for Palo to lynch—and wondered how many Palo had died in the last twelve hours because of the governor’s fearmongering. Sirod wanted to turn the people’s attention toward the Palo, to distract them with a fictional enemy. It was working.
“I thought as much,” Styke grunted, raising his lance. “You’ve got better th
ings to do than take out your problems on the Palo—because that’s just going to make everything worse.” He jerked his head at Jackal. “With me.”
Styke remained unmolested as he returned to the highway and continued north, the Palo walking beside him. They left the town far behind. Styke eventually brought Deshnar to a stop and leaned on the saddle horn, looking down at the sullen, silent boy.
Jackal stared back at him for some time before finally saying in a quiet, stoic voice, “I did.”
“You did what?”
“I slept with the barrister’s daughter. But I didn’t force her.”
Styke scoffed. “Good for you. You might want to work on your timing, though. Governor’s stirred everyone up against the Palo. There’s going to be a lot of this sort of shit the next few months.”
“I didn’t know about Fernhollow when it happened. I’m not stupid.”
“Well, continue being not stupid and get out of here.”
Jackal gave a nod of thanks and headed off the road, disappearing into the marshlands. Styke wondered if the boy would be a fool and circle back around to try and retrieve valuables—or the girl in question—from the town, or if he’d be smart about it and head toward the frontier as fast as his feet would carry him. It wasn’t Styke’s problem anymore.
Styke’s own journey carried him another three miles north before he crossed the river and headed west. The landscape quickly grew more varied—strips of willows marching along streams that broke up the cotton fields; rolling hills; and the immense plantation manors that belonged to ex-patriot Kez noblemen and successful Fatrastan merchants.
It was about three hours later that he found himself along a narrow road underneath a line of big willows, viewing a distant manor from across a field of tobacco. The manor was built in the same style as any plantation house in this part of the world—a two-story brick building with a columned porch, large white door, and big, shuttered windows marching across the face of both floors. It was, however, much bigger than most plantation houses. Wings of the manor had their own wings, and it seemed to creep into the distance like some kind of noble’s estate. The kennels off to one side were bigger than the barracks where Styke had lodged three hundred lancers, while the museum at the far end of the valley housed an infamous art collection that was rumored to be the envy of Kressian nobles.